World Economic Forum 2026: At Davos, Swiggy bets big on AI to revamp food delivery landscape

Artificial intelligence (AI) is set to change how India looks at food delivery, Swiggy's Food Marketplace CEO Rohit Kapoor said on Monday, as AI continues to expand across various walks of life.

Speaking in Davos on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum, Kapoor told PTI in a video interview that Gen AI has already started to change the landscape of the food delivery system in India.

“For example, if somebody calls customer service, and I have the ability through Gen AI to live understand the quality of that discussion, and I can do something about it immediately. That's a power that Gen AI is unleashing,” he said.

Kapoor remarked that AI is now democratising a host of things with intelligence at everyone's fingertips.

“It is telling restaurant partners what happened yesterday, which dishes moved, which didn't. It helps our delivery partners understand where to go to get more maximum orders, and it has something for our leadership to understand what happened to the business yesterday,” he noted.

With AI, several other things are happening on an experimental basis, according to the Swiggy Food Marketplace CEO, who said that “it's important at this juncture to sort of embrace it”.

At Swiggy, the leaders have fully embraced the “transformational change” led by AI, the top official said.

Robotics, drones play key role

With the transformation that AI has brought, robotics is also playing a key role, Rohit Kapoor said in the PTI interview.

Along with AI, robotics plays a key role in warehouses, and there have been some test cases of drone deliveries and also food delivery, he says.

However, Swiggy has, to date, only conducted a handful of use cases, as per Kapoor.

“There could be some pilots and experiments going on in different parts. But I won't say that this is mainstream in the business. But tomorrow what can happen and see for each of these technologies because the costs need to come down over time,” he said.

Asked how far we are from drone delivery of food beyond test cases, he said he never bets against technology.

The usage will go up when there is a low-cost option available, “because there's always a competing resource which can do the same job”, the Swiggy executive said.

He said drones are great at delivering to a particular spot, but how will they go the last mile?

“Even in an office complex or a residential society, it can go to one place or one position, but you need your food at your doorstep. Those are the questions which will need to be answered first,” Kapoor said.

“But I'm sure that as things evolve, models change, they transform, things happen,” he added.